Back to Basics- Rediscovering "Old School" black hair care

I've made a decision this week to return to the traditional ways of caring for natural hair. While I appreciate the advancements the natural hair community has made in promoting self-love and proper care for kinky, coily hair, overtime, I feel that the focus has shifted towards excessive consumerism and product junky-ism.

I've reached a breaking point this week and decided to go back to basics in my hair care routine (I'm talking about that old school hair care). I will still carry forward the valuable lessons I've learned along the way, such as the importance of proper cleansing, clarifying, deep conditioning, proper product order and using products that actually do work for my hair type. However, I'm saying goodbye to the endless cycle of buying expensive jellies, butters, curl smoothies, and soufflés that don't necessarily deliver results.

I am grateful for the variety of options available to women of color with different hair textures today. If these products work for you, that's fantastic. But personally, I have realized that I have been swayed by the belief that natural ingredients are the only way to go. While I appreciate natural remedies, I am open to using man-made alternatives if they prove to be effective.

After investing in yet another round of products that didn't meet my expectations, I have come to the realization that the products I used in the past worked well for me. Back then, we were content with what we had (mainly because we didn't have a choice) and our hair flourished. Most people that I knew didn't experience major challenges with their hair until they were introduced to the perm. The natural hair movement brought about positive change, but also led us to discard products that were actually beneficial to some.

I am embarking on this journey back to the basics (old school black hair care) to conduct my own experiments and make informed decisions based on my own experiences, rather than blindly following trends or someone else's opinions. I am revisiting products like grease, pink hair lotion, hot combs (electric, of course), roller sets, press and curls, curl activator and more, to see how they work for my/my daughters's hair.

That's not to say that I expect these products to be "perfect." I've learned the hard way, after years of experimentation, that nothing is perfect. The products just have to effective, and I have to see if the shortcomings are something that I can live with. 

It has been a week since I made this decision and I am already seeing promising results. Here's to saving money, finding contentment in simplicity, and embracing the journey ahead.

Peace and blessings,

LaDay

Why I feel like Flylady no longer works for me as a working mom…. And that’s okay 🙂

 

Did you just judge yourself for fumbling the ball as you learn and try something new?

 

Unblock Creativity With Mini Essays

 

The most common hurdles to creativity are lack of time, lack of motivation, lack of clarity, lack of follow up ideas, lack of writing skills, which can all lead to a lack of confidence.

Mini Essays are a tool that can help you get over this initial hurdle and move forward with the ideation process. Mini Essays involve attempting to flush out your thoughts in as little as 100-300 words (3-6 paragraphs).

The reason creatives should consider incorporating mini essays into their creative routine is because its design helps overcome procrastination. They force the creative to make their big ideas concise and short. If the creative feels like they only have to commit to a few minutes and a few paragraphs to the idea, they are less likely to feel overwhelmed with expressing their creative thoughts.

Another reason creatives should consider incorporating mini essays into their creative routine is because they help overcome perfectionism. Perfectionism tends to be a killer to many new, budding ideas, that if allowed to be nurtured could turn into something great! Many creative can't get to or past this early budding stage. Since mini essays are so short, they remove the pressure that an idea must be fully flushed out, mature, or complete to start to the creative process.

Mini essays are the perfect tool to bring about that feeling of clarity and maturation to ideas that many creative people so deeply desire. Authors explain that we don't write because we have cool ideas to share. Instead, many profound writers realized that it's though the writing process that they receive creative inspiration and figure what the message really is. Additionally, as your writing routine become consistent, your will develop the skills to fully and more clearly express yourself, which will also aid in clarifying and maturation of your ideas.

In conclusion, mini essays are a powerful way to overcome the obstacles that prevent many creatives from showing up to their creative practice daily. They offer a low time and low energy way to show up, grow your writing skill set, and come up with even more creative ideas.

If you are a creative, you likely have ideas popping into your head all the time. Instead of letting it circle around your head and eventually be forgotten, consider writing a mini essay to see what that idea could be when allowed to be expressed. You never know what new ideas you could generate and ultimately what that idea could be if allowed to be nurtured to its full potential. 

YOU Make the Magic

Last night, I dreamed I was at my grandmother's house. We were sitting at the table. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about. Every so confidently, loving, and proudly, my grandmother clasped both of her hands over mine, she looked me in my eye and told me to "YOU make the magic".

It was almost as if I were complaining or expressing helplessness (which I find I've been struggling with lately) and she wanted to remind me that no matter how much control I think I don't have in this world, I can still chose to show up and to not be passive.

I think about all of the areas where I've been passive lately. 

• I consume more social media that I would like. I consume other people's "magic" and creativity, yet I struggle to produce my own (although I know deep down inside I would very much like to).
• I feel helpless as I learn about genocide and dishonest politicians. There are things that I could contribute to social change, even if it's very small. Yet, I feel paralyzed, helpless, and I find myself just watching.
• I want to grow in my career. Over the last year and a half, I've experienced rejection after rejection. After a while, I started to become discouraged.

The message from my grandma reminds me to have hope and try again.

I think of all the ways that my grandma was a magic maker. One of the biggest examples was during holidays. Holiday's always felt so warm ,cozy, loving and inviting when she was around. Now that she's gone, I struggle to recreate that feeling in myself. I very quickly realized that the holiday's alone weren't that special. It was all the things that my grandmother did for us that made them feel magical. From hanging up decorations, to the fun traditions, to the home cooked meals. I wish I would have cherished those moments more when I had the chance. Without her special touch, those holidays wouldn't have felt as special. Modeling what she did for us, I try my best to be the magic maker for my own family.

To me " YOU Make the Magic," implies co-working/ co- creating with God, our creator. Action on its own can sometimes feel meaningless or like its not making an impact. When I feel like my actions aren't impactful, I find myself asking, "What's the point?" Aligned action with God means we recognize our limitations as humans, and know that God can make that small act more impactful than anything we could ever do on our own. This perspective gives me hope.

This dream was important to me because it felt like my grandma was reaching down from heaven, encouraging me to keep hope alive, to keep going, and to not give up. 

Reflections on making housework manageable (and sometimes even enjoyable) for the kids

    It's been a huge goal of mine to NOT make housework feel as distasteful to my children as it felt to me when I was a child. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I remember becoming curious about chores and eager to help the adults. Once my family realized my capabilities, those chores quickly became MY (and my brothers) chores, with little to no adult support going forward.

    As an mom, I can absolutely understand why the adults chose to handle household responsibilities handoffs in this way. Being an adult is exhausting. Dumping undesirable tasks on other people creates one less thing that you have to worry about. As an exhausted mom, I get it.

    But as a 6/ 7year old, this introduction to helping around the house made me feel resentful and wishing like I should have kept my curiosity to myself. I'm positive that this abrupt hand-off contributed to the intense resistance toward chores that I experienced all throughout my adolescence.

    Fast forward to today, I empathize with my kids when it comes to taking on more responsibilities around the home as they get older. For this reason, I'm intentional about making the process of teaching my kids household responsibilities as painless as I possibly can. If we can't make it fun, my goal is to at least make it neutral.

    Does that always happen? No. Sometimes, I do have to go mama bear on my little ones. However, I can confidently say that we have more positive experiences than negative ones when it comes to doing chores. I feel really proud of that.

    We've been working on establishing routines and systems for a while. My kids can earn an allowance for their contributions to taking care of their home, among other thins.

But here are a couple of routines that we have been working on lately:

1. Put the house to bed- I set a daily alarm to go off in the evenings. When the alarm goes off, we'll play fun music and/or I'll set a 15 minute timer. Once the alarm goes off, the kids know that it's time to help tidy and reset the public spaces in our home. One big kid will empty and load the dishwasher. Another big kid will clear the dinner table and swiffer the floors. My 5 year olds scour the house, looking for things that are in the wrong place. While this is happening, my husband and I are guiding them & training them and jumping in where we can to make the process go faster. When we are done, the house looks pretty respectable. Most importantly, I feel like we are setting the example that taking care of a home is a team effort, and everyone needs to do their part. Prior to this experiment, we've been working with the kids for a while to learn how to do these basic chores. I've struggled to find the right approach to make this practice consistent. "Putting the house to bed" has definitely been a fun way to help with the consistency piece.

2. Laundry day- Everyone in the house has officially been assigned a laundry day. My husband and I work on our laundry on Fridays. The boys work on their laundry on Saturdays. The girls work on their laundry on Sundays. On Mondays, I wash miscellaneous items that don't fit into any of the other categories. On your assigned day to wash, you are responsible for washing your clothes for the week as well as your towels and bedding. The boys are mostly old enough to do this independently. Prior to implementing this routine, the boys have been helping sort out and put away laundry for years. Introducing this new step of washing the clothes has worked, almost seamlessly, with the routines that we established before. The boys being able to do their own laundry has lifted such a weight off my shoulders as a working mom. Since we've been stepping up their responsibility, they have a good attitude about it for the most part. The girls are 5, and they have been making progress with this new routine as well. I have a step stool in the laundry room that they can use to make sure they are sprinkling the detergent correctly and use when taking their washed clothes out the washing machine and moving it into the dryer. Just like the boys, the girls are familiar with sorting their clothes out and putting them into their (no fold) drawer system. At this time, they primarily need support with staying on task and hanging a few dresses. Otherwise, they are engaged, excited to help, and they are doing an awesome job l establishing this routine. Just like with my other initiative, I use my Alexa device to help remove the mental load of remembering to tell the kids when it's time to do their laundry. My Alexa device reminds the kids to check on their laundry hourly. Once the laundry is done for the day, the kids are free to shut off the reminders. It's an ongoing reminder, so she will automatically go off again next week.

There are a few more home maintenance routines I would like to establish with the kids before they go off into the world, such as keeping their bathrooms clean and learning how to deep clean, ect. I'm sure we will get there... slowly but surely. But for now, I feel happy with the energy around our new family cleaning routines. I vow to work very hard to protect that energy the best that I can... even if that means the house will be a little messier than I would like for now. We'll keep working together to close the gap.... eventually.

Peace and Blessings,

LaDay

Balancing Self Care and Never Ending Obligations as a Working Mom

The house is quiet and today.

This is not your typical quietness. Most of the quiet time I have during the week is usually paired with some sort of obligation. For example, when the kids are at school, I'm at my full time job. When the kids are sleeping, I, too, am equally exhausted and can be found in bed.

Today's quiet is different. I choose for it to be obligation-free and instead I'm using it to nourish my soul.

It's not that there aren't other things that I could be doing. The sink is full of dishes. The bathrooms could use a good scrub. I could be planning a birthday party, making a meal plan, or preparing a shopping list.

Today, I choose not because I know that I could be working, planning and doing chores indefinitely if I'm not intentional about taking breaks and incorporating self care along the way.

In my current stage of life, getting all my work done before rest & play no longer makes sense for me.

It worked for me in my early 20s. Between school-work, part-time work, and dorm life, I had a fairly limited amount of responsibilities that I could easily check off of my to do list. I had an abundance of time and energy to engage in other activities that I enjoyed and ample time to refill my emotional cup.

Today, as a working mom, my to do list is indefinitely long. Between taking care of my family, my home, my career and myself, there is ALWAYS something to do. Despite this circumstance, however, I'm the one who has to take accountability for my rest, my play, and for my emotional wellbeing. Which is why I chose to enjoy today's quiet.

The work is never done... but somehow it always gets done. I know that this may sound contradictory. But if you're a busy mom, you may understand. The work somehow always gets done, whether I'm taking care of myself along the way or not. After years of battling chronic burn out, I've learned, when possible to choose the peaceful path and for me that means prioritizing self care as often as I can.

I'm grateful to have a life where self care is an option.

Peace and Blessings,

LaDay